Okay, I'm quoted in it, but this is still a good introduction to Europe's recent fires. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Why Is Europe Burning?

“This is a structural issue in society,” a Spanish firefighter said, about worsening wildfires across Europe. “We’ve turned our backs on the mountains, on nature—and cities have never been so affected...

newyorker.com

Irresistible contrast - we don't need Deep Space Observatories looking out to the stars to understand Earth's status in the galaxy. We just need to look around us. Earth is the fire planet. None else like it. www.wired.com/story/spanis...

One of NASA’s Most Important Deep Space Observatories Hit by Spanish Wildfires

Flames burned through the Deep Space Communications Complex near Madrid, but NASA has been unable to assess the damage as a wildfire emergency grips the region.

wired.com

In 1928 Rene Magritte imagined the landscape on fire (Le Paysage en feu). A century later that ring of fire looks like a prophetic lens on Europe's Pyrocene.

Wildfire in southwestern France - not a new phenomenon, but not a welcome one either. Here's one of several fire paintings by Etienne Mondineu (ca. 1901).

A year ago the Dragon Bravo fire started (discovered on Fourth) - largest fire on record for the Kaibab Plateau and the ruination of the North Rim's developed area. The promised review is still not released. Anyone else think the agency is trying to just run out the clock?

Heat domes now, fires to follow. For historical background to Europe's fire scene, Undying Fire is published! 40% the length of Vestal Fire; half of it abridged and updated from VF, and half new and reconceptualized. Univ. of Washington Press even offers a 40% discount (code WAUT).

In recent decades 1998 has been season of record for the Southeast - looks like it's getting a challenger. The year was also noteworthy for the smoke that poured across the southern US from Mexico's 'temporada catastrofica' which led to major reforms in policy and programs.

Researching for a fire history of the Kaibab Plateau - my response to the Dragon Bravo fire -I found the jobs and pay for fed firefighters in 1946. You could be a legit flunky (paid more than an unskilled firefighter). Glad to see smokechasing as a distinctive category. Highest paid? Head cook.

If we all start thinking response is politicized (and I admit it sure looks like we are losing to the siege forces), if you demand that responders follow a party, it can do nothing but make disasters worse, response less effective, & recovery less equitable. Hands off Smokey. Free the Bear! 11/11

Tall Timbers was on the national register - a loss all around. I had the privilege of serving on the board for 3 years. Not just a place but an exemplar of fire and land management. wildfiretoday.com/fire-burns-h...

With Nebraska burning, it might be time to post some historic images of fire control on the Plains. Start with firebreaks installed in the Sandhills - double plowed lines with the interior burned out.

Before GIS there were fire atlases - all analogue, with printed topo maps, data entered with heavy colored pencils, hard bound in canvas. Here's one from the Kaibab National Forest that was rescued, scorched, from a fire in the supervisor's officer. A fire(d) atlas?

O'Connor is among the best journalists writing about fire. And the New Yorker? Who would have predicted it would regularly publish pieces on fire? Amazing fire, insightful essay. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

What America Can Learn from Its Largest Wildfire of the Year

When Dragon Bravo ignited, in Grand Canyon National Park, officials decided to let it burn. Then the fire spread out of control.

newyorker.com

As reports tally up the 2025 fires, here's a long view back. I've updated and abridged Vestal Fire - now 40% as long, with half the new text completely rewritten, reorganized, and reconceptualized. The narrative still includes Russia. Should be published in spring, 2026.

New paper: The role of fire on Earth doi.org/10.1093/bios... BioScience @aibsbiology.bsky.social Fire affects all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, anthroposphere, & biosphere. Fire is an intrinsic factor on our planet. 🧪🌍🔥🌳🌿🌐 wildfire

Thread: August 20, the anniversary of the Big Blowup, a catalyst for the American way of wildland fire. (top) Post-season map of the 1910 season, with the Blowup circled in red. (bottom) Photo of the mine adit where ranger Ed Pulaski held his crew at gunpoint.

Shouldn't be a surprise - the fire practices of indigenous peoples in the highly fire-prone SW could locally override even climate signals. But that is what received understanding claimed. Here's the data to bring the Ndee into alignment with other premodern peoples. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Tree rings reveal persistent Western Apache (Ndee) fire stewardship and niche construction in the American Southwest | PNAS

Identifying the influence of low-density Indigenous populations in paleofire records has been methodologically challenging. In the Southwest United...

pnas.org

Thread. Yet another avatar for Dragon Bravo - burning an isolated mesa in the Canyon, this time The Dragon itself (one of the Canyon's most apt placenames).

Dragon Bravo keeps reincarnating - now it's a Canyon fire, sending a giant talon eastward from the Walhalla Plateau across the Canyon at its widest. Always had a Canyon fire or two each season, but - really?

In grad school I studied history of science, geomorphology, American West, and intellectual-cultural history, all aligning with the history of exploration, of which Great Ages makes a conceptual capstone. When I decided to write fire, my exploration stuff was my quasi-model. Just released in pb

Quite a summer for European fire. I'm reminded of a passage from A.C.Clarke's 2001: "Beyond the reaches of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire.." Not a bad account of the maturing Pyrocene. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires

Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft join rescue effort in Greece, and firefighter among those killed in Turkey

theguardian.com

Thread on Dragon Bravo, which continues its serial reincarnations. Began as lightning fire in confine and contain mode (escaped). Morphed into urban fire (incinerated park's developed area). Swelled into proto-megafire (blew over major containment line). Now a free-burning megafire.

Dragon Bravo fire - blowing, going, gone. The Kaibab Plateau as microcosm of Earth, consumed in a slow-motion Ragnarok. This is where my life as a scholar on fire began. There is no way I cannot not take on this fire as a project and try to give it context - would be professional malfeasance.

A fire that seemed to begin as a demo of how not to do confine-and-contain, complete with urban conflagration, is evolving into a master class on big-box-and-burn. Interesting cameo of the American wildland fire scene. inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-inf...

The Turkeyfeather Fire in the Gila Wilderness, NM has burned as a low-severity fire over about 24,000 acres (so far). This is a continuation of a fire regime that existed for millennia before the 20th century. This 🧵reviews the fire history of the Gila, as my colleagues and I have studied it. 1/18

Wondering what I might say about the WU scene now that it has gotten so technical (a good development, actually). Maybe contribute to its redefinition? How about - Owning the WUI: HIZ, HERZ, ITZ [https://www.stephenpyne.com/blog]

Another round with poop in the coop - another free-associating parody....

Amazing how the mind free associates when cleaning up chicken and sheep poop ...

Amid wildfires and political arson - a memento from a gentler fire era. A smokechaser lamp (yes, it works). What happens when a crew sits around the fire cache during a season-ending storm.

For those who would prefer to hear rather than read the fire history of Mexico, Five Suns audio is 50% off. Same great narrative. www.audiobooks.com/promotions/p...

50% OFF Five Suns: A Fire History of Mexico

A climate defined by wet and dry seasons, a mostly mountainous terrain, a biota prone to disturbances, a human geography characterized by a diversity of peoples all of whom rely on burning in one form...

audiobooks.com